Tag: Beaujolais

The research for the series Understanding theTerroir of Burgundy led me to some very unexpected places, and that path was far longer and much more circuitous than I ever could have imagined when I first began. My trek of discovery led me to write in a “knee bone is connected to the leg bone” kind of way, and I found that the subject matter began directing me onto a decidedly historically driven path. I realized that I had a completely new series of articles before me: to piece together how the families lived and farmed the Côte d’Or lived before the dawn of the twentieth century.

I immediately realized that this history of Côte d’Or would prove to be difficult extract. There is little that is written directly about life in the Burgundian villages. Clive Coates’ work detailing various famous properties ownership, is well established, but beyond that, little seems to be written. If this history has been written, and it is out there, it may not have been digitized, it probably is only in French,(1) but in any case, it has been exceptionally difficult to locate.

There are a number of reasons for this lack of information.

The first is Burgundy (as we are interested in the region as it pertains to the wine), comes a small ribbon of hillside in rural France. And despite Burgundies production of one of the world’s great luxury products, it was something of a rural backwater. National politics did not originate from Burgundy; it was not a financial center, nor did great historical events take place there.

While we generically referred to the wine of the Côte d’Or as Burgundy, in reality, Burgundy a much larger area covering four departments of rural France. In fact, the Côte d’Or was fairly isolated, with most of its trade moving upon the most improved roads, which were to the north. The wines were traded to the Netherlands, and then across the Channel to England, or to a lesser extent northwest to Paris. Even then, these roads were extremely poor by today’s standards. This trade in a single direction indicates that the Cote d’Or was pretty much the end of the line in terms of travel. Yes, there were roads to Jura and of course the Maconnaise, but those roads were poor, and those trade routes meant the wines of Burgundy would need to compete with the inexpensive wines of Beaujolais and Macon that Paris consumed in large quantities. This meant that along with a direction of trade, came an equally limited flow of information out of Burgundy, something that recorded history requires. This would continue until wider networks of roads and rail lines were developed in the mid to late 1800’s increased travel and trade elsewhere in France and elsewhere in Europe. All of these factors makes finding and compiling information about this narrow strip of land in the countryside of France all the more difficult.

The history of the vignerons of Burgundy may not be important in the context of the larger issues of the times, but to those of us Burgundy lovers with the rare ‘historian’ gene within our makeup, are curious about this place where the great wine has been made for centuries. There may only be one or two of us out there who doesn’t say “who cares?” Yet I continue undaunted.

This new, yet to be written, series of articles really began as I wrote about erosion in Vosne-Romanee Les Damaudes, in Understanding the Terroir of Burgundy. I was struck by so many questions regarding this place and the people who farmed it. Who were these small landholders, and what happened to them? What was their life like? Was their life in the Côte d’Or different from other peasants in the rest of France? Was there economic security? How did the Revolution affect the Côte d’Or these people? How was life different for the people who farmed these vineyards before and after the revolution? What happened to the local nobility? What was their relationship to the peasants that worked for them? What were the real effects of phylloxera in Burgundy? How did phylloxera and the economy effect vineyard ownership and the peasants of Burgundy?

What we do know is that the families that farm Burgundy today, are, for the most part, the same families that farmed Burgundy in the 1700’s. Their history forms the basis of the wines that they produce today, and that makes their history important. Most of the people who farmed these famous vineyards were virtually invisible even as they lived and others would only gain even a footnote in history after they bought a parcel of a world-renown vineyard. All told, this is a scant bit of information.

But this is a period of time (I will cover 150 years between 1750 and 1900) that should be revealed, and not forgotten to history. As it is, it virtually only exists today as footnotes in scholarly texts, in support of some other broader historical exploration. I set out on with a goal to collect these widely spread granules of information and assemble them into something meaningful. I want to illuminate the story of these people, who as individuals, that from the moment they died, there was no trace of their existence.

Searching for Burgundy-related history via the internet is itself problematic. The word Burgundy, in a web search, is first most closely associated with the color, especially in terms fashion, and then it is most closely associated with the Duchy (kingdom) of Burgundy which ruled much of the French interior before the middle ages until 1525. This was at least 200 years before the period that I considered would be relevant to the vignerons of Burgundy today. Gradually I learned how to tease out pieces of information using the internet, and one tidbit of information would lead to a keyword, with which I could find more.

Without the internet, google search, and control+F, this research would not be possible, particularly in the short amount of time as I have compiled it. I must also credit amazon, which puts substantive previews of thousands of scholarly books, each which might only have one or two mentions of Burgundy within their pages. This feature this allowed me to search for information with a simple find command. Without this resource, to write something like this would require access to a major university library, and possibly years of free time. But even if I had access to the physical books, without a search function, it may have been very difficult to find the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Even with the internet’s incredible search power at my fingertips, I never did find a history of the people of the of the Côte d’Or. At this point, I have 10,000 words of notes compiled (roughly 22 pages in 12 point font), and I think I have a well-rounded enough set of information to begin writing about Burgundy. My hope is that I can paint a picture of what it was like for the families that have lived there since at least the beginning of the 18th century, if not long before.

The story of the vignerons of the Cote d’Or develops against the backdrop of France as an emerging superpower. This is a national history that is remarkably character rich, full of intrigue, drama, betrayal, and of course war, revolution, and for a couple of years, the heavy use of the guillotine. Comparably, the history of the rural Côte d’Or is somewhat sleepy, but it is these series of stormy, almost operatic, political events of the national stage, looms as an important Burgundian back story. The happenings in Paris, like a giant roulette wheel, changed the cast of moneyed, powerful characters who owned the great vineyards, and to various extents, dictated the quality lives of those who lived there. The one constant was that the peasants and most of the lower-cased Bourgeoisie continued on like they had for centuries.

(1) I have done many searches for untapped information in French, but it has not yielded much more information than English scholarly writings have since presumably those sources have already been mined.

Jean Paul Brun’s Domaine Terres Dorees near the Southern Beaujolais village of Charnay. While not a privileged address, Brun is making some superb Beaujolais from old vines here in the Beaujolais des Pierres Dorees, and from plots in Crus Beaujolais Villages he has purchased over the years.

I suppose saying the name of the firm that imports Jean-Paul Brun’s wines will say as much about the wine, right up front, as I can in a paragraph. It’s Louis/Dressner, the king among the proponents of “natural” winemaking. Pick a wine from Dressner’s portfolio, and it’s bound to be one of the least manipulated wines you will find in the marketplace. Indeed this is the case of Domaine Terres Dorees: Brun farms biodynamically, typically does not capitalize (- his wines hover around 12%+ alcohol,) uses indigenous yeasts, often does not use SO2, or uses the most minuscule amount. Instead, he relies on encouraging residual CO2 to remain in the wine during bottling to protect it as it ages (which may require decanted the wine before drinking.) With diligence and meticulousness, the wines of Domaine Terres Dorees are routinely phenomenal.

Jean-Paul Brun, Robert Parker, and the Natural Wine Debate

Brun started his winery with 3 hectares of family owned vines, and over the last 35 years has continuously added to his vineyards, bringing his current landholding to a sizable 25 hectares in Beaujolais des Pierres Dorees (in far south near Lyon) and 5 hectares of Cru Beaujolais scattered across various villages. Domaine Terres Dorees produces roughly 300,000 bottles / 25,000 cases per year. What is notable is for a winery of this size to produce wines which are not only biodynamically farmed, but produced in virtually an organic. That’s no easy feat, with so many of vats and barrels to monitor at any one time. Brun claims in the interview on the Louis/Dressner site, that he is not against using SO2. He says he’d much rather see people make good wine by adding sulfites, than produce bad wine because they couldn’t control the results of not using it, which is so often the case. Winemakers who don’t use SO2 and then make flawed wine, “discredits sulfur-free wine,” as a category, Brun says forcefully. By extension, I take that to mean the work he is doing. Jean-Paul adds “For these guys it becomes less about making great wine and more about being part of a “cool” movement.” (see Side Bar, Counselors for more on this subject)

2011 Domaine Terres Dorees, Beaujolais L’Ancien $16

This wine is alive, and so vibrant! You can tell just by the color, but it’s the nose that hits you first, even you as you pour the wine. It virtually shoots out with high-toned cranberry, cherry fruit, and then finally clove and cinnamon notes eventually take over… (these are the tell-tail aromas of stem inclusion, althoughreports are that he de-stems.) In the mouth, the wine is light in weight yet spreads out broadly. It has an expansive texture that is soft, caressing and willowy, yet tingles with energy and vibrancy. The flavors just keep resonating, with rich black cherry, plum, and fresh, dark, black-skinned grape notes. Brilliant winemaking for a “simple” Beaujolais to be sure, but then this is no mass-produced plonk either. A serious winemaking team put this effort together, using a good vineyard source, and farmed in an exceptional manner.

Don’t count out the fact that it is a natural wine*. I have noticed a bright vibrancy that well-made ‘natural wines’ have in common. It is a unique characteristic that other wines, that have had SO2 added to them don’t share. In the mouth they so fresh and alive, and an extra measure of expressiveness. Could this commonality be no more than the CO2 on the palate? Whatever it is this had that unique characteristic in spades. Highly recommended: 91 points.

Reading Between The Lines

L’Ancien often indicates an old traditional methods of winemaking, but not in the case with Brun’s Beaujolais. Here it refers only to the vine age. They are certainly over 50 years old according to some sources, though the Louis/Dressner site says 80+ years. Regardless of the age of the vines, there is little about the way Brun makes wine that is traditional for the often mass-produced wines of the Beaujolais appellation. Even though I am absolutely sure I tasted stem contact in this Beaujolais, it is written that he favors de-stemming. Destemming is fairly unusual in Beaujolais. Perhaps he de-stems his more prestigious crus, but not this l’Ancien? In any case, there is a bit of cold maceration to set the color, which helps give it its dark color despite its relatively low ripeness of 12% alcohol. It is also written that he releases late for Beaujolais, preferring to give extra time in the barrel, more that 18 months, to soften up the tannins. Again, I suspect this regime is for the Cru Beaujolais, and I am sure this lower tiered Beaujolias l’Ancien only saw any oak, it wasn’t for long. It was very fresh, even now after a year on the market. The 2012 has already been released in the US Market.

This wine comes from his vineyards that surround his winery in Beaujolais des Pierre Dorees, – way down South in Bas Beaujolais. Pierres Dorees means stones of gold, referring what is colloquially called “yellow sandstone” that dates back to the Secondary Era (between 30 and 70 million years ago). This “sandstone” is more famous for its use in building the golden stone architecture of the area than it’s presence in the vineyards – since in the past no one took the wines made there very seriously. Sedimentary rock that has or more 50% calcium carbonate in the form of calcite (which often comes from the fossilized remains shellfish) is considered limestone, and less than 50% is considered sandstone. It is well documented that the entire area was covered by oceans millions of years ago, having left many deposits of the calcareous (chalky) remains of sea life across the growing area. Some people have casually written there is a limestone sub soil there. But that kind of bedrock really sits below Domaine Terres Dorees and the rest of Beaujolais des Pierre Dorees? That’s a good question.

* most likely a natural wine may be more accurate.

Read an outstanding and colorful interview with Jean-Paul on the Louis/Dressner website. Be sure to click on the small gray words Read More below the word Interview to open it up – it’s not as obvious as it should be.

Side Bar, Counselors:

SB 1: Can We Just Get To the Truth?

There are conflicting accounts of Bruns methods (as well as for the total area of his holdings) with multiple sources stating various and wildly conflicting things. Where possible, I have used direct quotes from Brun to determine the “facts” I report here. However, here is a typical dichotomy: Brun in a Louis/Dressner interview from 2011 alludes to not using sulfur at all, but the Louis/Dressner producer profile says he uses minimal SO2. It is entirely possible that since the website info was written, Brun had since stopped using SO2 altogether, and the Dressner website simply hadn’t been updated. Other exporters site Brun is a natural winemaker, not using SO2. One website rawfair.com is written as if it were a Torres Dorees press release:

“Le Domaine des Terres Dorées represents 30 hectares in Southern Beaujolais and 15 hectares in the Beaujolais crus. The soil is calcareous in the South with hints of iron and the stone is a golden color hence its name: Pierres Dorées means Golden Stones. Here we labor the soil, we protect the vines with copper and sulfur.”

While the Dressner site says the holdings are smaller at 40 acres, and quotes Jean-Paul Brun in the interview saying he has 5 hectares in among the Cru Beaujolais appellations.

So much wine reporting is done with casual exchanges of information, often being translated from one language to another. Then, with is so much room for error and misinterpretation, the information, gets propagated by multiple sources, be they wine writers, bloggers, retailers, and the general public, appearing all across the web as fact. The original source material is buried by this regurgitation, and there is no reference to when the information was written, or even if it was correct in the first place.

SB 2: The Natural Wine War of Words

That couldn’t be underscored more poignantly than by Robert Parker’s recent essay (if you can call it that)“Articles of Merit: There is No Reason and The Truth is Plain To See”, which was published on erobertparker.com. In what quickly devolves into a rant, he scorns the vocal natural wine proponents who rage against the mainstream wine world, and call mainstream winemaking over-ripe, cookie cutter, commercialized, and soulless. Of course Parker is routinely blamed for most of these vinous atrocities, and who can really blame him for letting loose? Parker shoots back at the natural wine crowd: “just how absurd this notion is becomes evident when the results are oxidized, stale, stink of fecal matter as well as look like orange juice or rusty ice tea being poured into a glass and passed off as “authentic”, “natural” or “real” wine.” Parker goes on and on, skewering and lambasting. And while he has many good points, it ends up sounding like bitter, drunk typing. Clearly the battle lines are squarely drawn, with the hipster/artist natural wine folks on one side decrying wine’s industrialization, and their cries for natural wine with purity and untethered expressions of terroir; and the rest of the wine world, just trying to put a good glass of wine in their glass. The reality is there should not be a war of words here, and I’m sure Jean-Paul Brun is shaking his head in frustration.

Right up front, I have to say I’m a big fan of the 2011 Beaujolais. As pure as the 2010s are, the 2011 are that much more, and I can’t put enough of a price on purity. Some will find the 2011s too light, but they simply aren’t letting the wine flow to them. Julienas is one of the more delicate of the Beaujolais villages. The Duboeuf Julienas flower label was remarkably beautiful, so floral with sublime lavender notes. The ’11 vintage as a whole is all about uber-pure cherry fruit, and long, but caressing, acidity. This single estate, Chateau des Capitans is quite a bit deeper, and richer, but still the Chateau des Capitans has on two previous occasions been wonderfully aromatic.

This is the second bottle (the one I had decided to review) of Chateau des Capitans isn’t showing as aromatically as the previous bottle. It is not obviously off. Still, the nose is significantly more dead, and a subtle wooden-ness suggests that it may be very-slightly corked. Even off, the Capitans display its dark cherry fruit, and nicely robust structure excellent balance, rounded but elegant mid-palate I’d give this a mid to high eighties score. But the 2011 Capitans from a good bottle is better than that though, and this bottle is missing its very exciting aromatic dimension. No score.

Chateau des Capitans is one of four estates in Julienas alone that the the firm Georges Duboeuf owns or controls. Des Capitans is “at the heart” of the hamlet of Capitans, and its single hectare of vineyard surrounds the 19th century Chateau. With a south-southeast exposure, the vineyard gets good ripeness.

An Up and Coming Beaujolais Superstar

Sitting at higher elevation, with a cooler overall temperature, and longer hang time, the wines of Chiroubles are the most delicate of all the villages in Beaujolais. Much of the village is planted in a kind of sand from eroded granite called gore, though some of the original vineyards are planted to base of solid rock, forcing farmers to drill holes before planting vines in those sections. Because of this, the wines of Chiroubles are often much more aromatic. The growing area of Chiroubles is only one square mile, and is home to 60 producers.

What a great year, and what a great producer! Damien is the step-son of of the famed Georges Descombes, who he trained under, and is showing his tremendous talent at all of 25 years old. Damien was only 22 when he made this 2009!

Vineyards in the Beaujolais wine region taken from one of the Cru Beaujolais sites of Chiroubles. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being imported by Louis Dressner, it’s not surprising that this is either natural or nearly natural wine-making – that’s kind of wine Dressner specializes in importing. On the nose and in the mouth it has that extra vibrancy that well-made natural wines exclusively have, that all others don’t. There’s this quality natural wines posess, that I just don’t find in wines that use commercial yeasts, are filtered, fined, acidified, chapitalized or had SO2 added.

“it has that extra vibrancy that well-made natural wines exclusively have, that all others don’t.”

Damien Coquelet rents his vineyards which he is converting to organic a process he is likely finished with. He lets the wine ferment naturally, with no intervention in the cellar, and little if any sulfur at bottling. He bottles his wine very early – a year earlier than Descombes, capturing the young juicy beautiful fruit rather than more serious structured wine more barrel age brings; and I think that is a great trade off.

The nose is simply alive in the way natural wines uniquely are, with stunning vibrancy of black cherries, fresh, damp, loam, violets and lavender, new leather, thyme, and a touch of cedar. The mouth is full of sweet-ish cherries, round and plush, textured, though still light-and-lively in the mouth. There is a touch of dryness to the super-soft and velvety tannins, with the fresh leather and loam – coming on broad and complex across the mid-palate. Along with black cherry swirling about, glistening and dynamic, there are some unexpected textural essences of peaches or nectarines on the finish. This Chiroubles has a wonderful transparency of flavors, with just enough weight, not to want for more. A very special wine. 92+ points

Definitely seek out his 2010 and 2011 wines while you have a chance to find them. I have tasted the 2010, and it is superb as well.